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Far from playing a passive role in the 2010 Senate primaries and then working to elect the eventual nominee, the committee under Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has vigorously inserted itself into a number of races in an attempt to handpick the GOP nominees it perceives as best suited to win. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

Conservatives resent NRSC nods

When Jane Norton officially joined an already crowded Colorado Republican Senate primary Tuesday, she had a helping hand from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC, it turned out, had already been unofficially working behind the scenes in advance of her announcement to reserve several domain names for her campaign website.

It was a small boost to the Norton campaign but one that provided a revealing insight into the NRSC’s thinking. Far from playing a passive role in the 2010 Senate primaries and then working to elect the eventual nominee, the committee under Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has vigorously inserted itself into a number of races in an attempt to handpick the GOP nominees it perceives as best suited to win.

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The NRSC has already officially endorsed five candidates and has worked behind the scenes on behalf of several other committee favorites who are facing contested primaries.

It’s a strategy that could land the party with a roster of highly electable candidates who could go a long way toward shrinking the party’s current deficit in the Senate. But it’s also an approach that is infuriating many activists who don’t like the idea of the national party stepping in and playing favorites — especially when it means picking a moderate over a conservative.

The best, and perhaps most controversial, example of the NRSC’s muscle-flexing is in Florida, where Cornyn quickly got behind the campaign of popular moderate Gov. Charlie Crist, despite growing conservative resentment over Crist’s support of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan and environmental policies.

The NRSC’s open support for the governor has stifled the fundraising ability of former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, an attractive candidate in his own right who has been winning the support of conservative activists across the state.

“The speed with which the national party and national Republicans took sides in this race has presented challenges,” said Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos. “Speaker Rubio never envisioned a day that a conservative in the Republican primary would be the underdog — and wouldn’t be given a chance by the national party.”

Cornyn is also taking sides in Kentucky, where he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are headlining a Sept. 23 fundraiser at NRSC headquarters for Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who is locked in a primary battle against ophthalmologist Rand Paul, the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

While Rand Paul has strong support from national libertarian activists, the private NRSC consensus is that Grayson is the more electable candidate.

Republicans who believe they have been big-footed haven’t taken it well. In Colorado, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck said he was planning on exiting the Senate race until he found out about the committee’s involvement with Norton, the state’s former lieutenant governor. He then changed his mind, defiantly declaring that Colorado’s nominee “won’t be chosen by political operatives in Washington.”

In California, where Cornyn singled out the campaign of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and touted her prospects in a post-recess memo to his GOP colleagues, her primary opponent, state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, organized a fundraiser to protest the NRSC’s involvement.

“Under John Cornyn, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has racked up an impressive string of endorsements in support of nonconservative, unpopular, poorly vetted candidates across the nation,” DeVore said. “These candidacies have thus far gone on to flounder or implode.”

Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams said an NRSC endorsement in his state would backfire.

“I made it clear to the NRSC two weeks ago that it would be counterproductive for them to get involved, because it would actually hurt Jane as she tries to win the nomination. And they assured me they were not going to be endorsing,” Wadhams said.

“There are hard-core activists here who have a strong sense of independence and feel we need to make the nomination decision without the big power brokers telling us who to vote for. She doesn’t need to be shepherded along by the NRSC; she has tremendous credentials on her own,” he said.

Cornyn’s logic, however, makes perfect sense to GOP strategists, who view it as a necessary exercise in political Darwinism.